Dr Ritika Kar Bahal is a microbiologist at The University of Western Australia. She has done her PhD in respiratory infectious diseases in India. Her research interests include respiratory tract infections, the role of early life respiratory microbiome in health and diseases and the human milk microbiome. Throughout her research career she has presented her work in several national and international conferences. She has received awards and scholarships for her work. She has published several peer-reviewed articles. Dr Bahal has recently relocated to Australia and is currently a postdoc in clinical microbiology group with Prof. Mark Nicol. Dr Bahal is interested in studying the biology of early life infant respiratory microbiome, how does the microbiota develop and influence the susceptibility to future respiratory tract infections. Her research interests include understanding how microbe-microbe and microbe-host interactions drive the development of healthy and dysbiotic microbiota. In addition, she is interested in developing a culture-based pipeline for studying human milk microbiome to understand the viable bacterial population in milk and their role in infant development.